Miyamoto: Wii & Wii U Are White To Appeal To All Ages

Last week at E3 2011, I had a chance to sit down and chat with video
game luminary Shigeru Miyamoto. We’ll be posting the interview in full
tomorrow, but to offer a glimpse, here’s what the creator of
Donkey Kong, Mario, and Zelda had to say when asked why the Wii and Wii U
aren’t as colorful as past Nintendo systems.

“Based on my background as an industrial designer and Nintendo and my
background in creating entertainment, I’ve always wanted to make
greater use of color in our hardware,” said Miyamoto. “If you look back
on things like the Famicom and the original Super Nintendo, they were a
lot more colorful from a hardware perspective.

"What we found over the years when we included a lot of different
colors in our hardware is people would kind of point to that and use it
to paint us as more kid-oriented. So really what we looked at is what
are some ways from a design perspective that can make the system appeal
to all ages One of the ways that we found to best do that is to minimize
the use of color. In that process we asked if we’re going to do that,
what’s the best way to go? We found that rather than going all black -
all white seems to have a broader appeal to people.”

Check back tomorrow to learn more from Miyamoto on Nintendo’s new
console, Zelda’s 25th anniversary, and some interesting facts about
Nintendo’s past.